In some wireless communication systems, a user equipment (UE) wirelessly communicates with a base station to send data to the base station and/or receive data from the base station. A wireless communication from a UE to a base station is referred to as an uplink communication. A wireless communication from a base station to a UE is referred to as a downlink communication.
Resources are required to perform uplink and downlink communications. For example, a UE may wirelessly transmit data, such as a transport block (TB), to a base station in an uplink transmission at a particular frequency and during a particular interval of time. The frequency and time interval used are examples of resources. Other examples of resources may include parameters such as the reference signal used in the transmission and/or the modulation and coding scheme (MCS) used.
Some wireless communication systems may support grant-based uplink transmissions. That is, if a UE wants to transmit data to a base station, the UE requests uplink resources from the base station. The base station grants the uplink resources, and then the UE sends the uplink transmission using the granted uplink resources. An example of uplink resources that may be granted by the base station is a set of time-frequency locations in an uplink orthogonal frequency-division multiple access (OFDMA) frame.
Some wireless communication systems may also or instead support grant-free uplink transmissions. That is, a UE may send uplink transmissions using certain uplink resources possibly shared with other UEs, without specifically requesting use of the resources. A grant-free uplink transmission does not need a dynamic and explicit scheduling grant from the base station.